A few years ago, my partner replaced her Vodafone mobile phone, and
for some reason the original (which was on my account) did not get
cancelled. I had already transferred my own account to another service
provider because of my dissatisfaction with Vodafone's service, and
the Vodafone account was subsequently just forgotten about.

In about July of last year, I realised that I was still paying the
monthly service charge for a phone which hadn't actually been switched
on for a year or two. In my opinion, Vodafone had failed in their duty
of care to me, as their customer. They should have contacted
me to make sure the account was still required. Nevertheless, although
they arguably ought to have asked me about it, the root cause of it
was my own incompetence so I don't claim that they should refund those
charges.

I telephoned Vodafone, went through the authentication procedure by
giving my date of birth, mother's maiden name, etc., and I asked them to
cancel the account.

At this point, I was rather taken aback when the lady to whom I was
speaking refused to cancel the account. She claimed that I
had to jump through arbitrary hoops, and submit my request in
writing. These days, apparently Vodafone are insisting on such things
being sent, on paper, by Recorded Delivery -- presumably just as a
ploy to extend contracts for a little longer before they actually get
cancelled.

I said that I would not be doing any such thing, and that I would
be cancelling the Direct Debit (the means by which they
automatically take money from my bank account) in a month's time,
when the notice period was complete.

I asked her to make sure that there was a note on my account
recording the fact that I had authenticated myself and clearly
indicated my desire to cancel the account, and the fact that the
Direct Debit was going to be cancelled. She said that she had done so,
and the call was completed.

A month or so later, I cancelled the Direct Debit. I contacted them
by email (through the weird form on their web site since they don't
just publish a contact address), and told them that I had done so.

A few months later, in January of this year (2006), I noticed that
my spam folder still contained HTML mail from Vodafone telling me that
my bill is available. Although it was fairly much indistinguishable
from a phishing scam because they didn't bother to GPG-sign it, I
checked with them anyway -- only to find that they still considered my
account to be active, and were still claiming that it was accruing
charges.

Vodafone are claiming that they didn't cancel my account when I
asked them because they didn't receive my request 'in writing'. I'm
not entirely sure what they mean by 'in writing', in this
context. Surely they don't mean calligraphy? Typing has to be
acceptable, surely? And surely they can't mean that it actually has to
be typed personally by myself? There's legal precedent in
this country that email is acceptable as 'writing' -- does that go for
other entries in their computer system, too? When the lady to whom I
was speaking when I called them made an entry in their system
reporting my request, was it not written then? It
was certainly written when I sent the followup email telling
them that I'd cancelled the Direct Debit.

I clearly told them that the "outstanding" charges would not be
paid, and reminded them that it is a criminal offence in this country
to demand money for unsolicited services. I was receiving bizarre
responses, seemingly from a different first-line support monkey each
time, and they often didn't even seem to have read the mail
to which they were replying. I eventually gave up; I figured that the
account would be suitably marked, and if someone with any clue ever
actually came to deal with it, the matter would be resolved then.

Evidently I was wrong -- I was subsequently contacted by a debt
collection agency, Wescot Credit Services, on Vodafone's behalf. So
even when they came to look at the account and 'escalate' it to debt
collection, nobody with sufficient clue was actually paying any
attention. At this point I attempted to contact Vodafone again -- I
replied to the last mail I'd received from them. My reply contained
their support ticket number, and it obviously also bore
a References: header uniquely specifying
the Message-Id: of the mail to which I was replying, too.

Vodafone's reply was a message saying

Thank you for your email dated 31/05/06
In order for us to respond to your query, please provide us with the following information:-
-Your account number
-Your address including postcode
-Your date of birth.
If you require any further assistance please do not hesitate to contact us.
Kind regards,
Lesley Stevens
Vodafone Customer Services

I responded, stating my confusion at this behaviour on their part:

Don't send HTML mail.
I'm assuming this is either a fully automated reply or just someone not
actually bothering to think -- I'm replying to an existing 'ticket' and
you have my email address on file anyway.
I believe the account number may be 28632641, or that might just be the
account number at Wescot Credit Services, whom you have engaged to
harass me for this invalid 'debt'.
You will need to contact me again if my assumption is incorrect and you
really _are_ incapable of working out who I am despite the fact that I'm
continuing an existing thread of discussion, as evidenced by the ticket
number in the Subject: header and the unique Message-Ids given in my
References: and In-Reply-To: headers.

Vodafone didn't manage to respond to that at all. A few days later,
I followed up again, stating that I was still awaiting a coherent
reply, and an apology from Vodafone. I also then noticed that their
ticketing system seemed to have assigned a new ticket number, so I
sent another mail telling them what the previous ticket number had been.

I then received another identical response from Lesley Stevens,
asking for the same information again. I responded to this idiocy:

Again, I am assuming that you do not really want this information; it's
just a semi-automatic request coming out of your somewhat bizarre
system. You already knew perfectly well who I was when we were already
communicating about ticket #1555663.
And do not send HTML mail.

Here, it all got rather repetitive...

Thank you for your email dated 08/06/06
In order for us to forward your query to the relevant department, please provide us with the following information:-
-Your account number
-Your address including postcode
-Your date of birth.
If you require any further assistance please do not hesitate to contact us.
Kind regards,
Jacqui Gibbons
Vodafone Customer Services

For crying out loud.
PLEASE STOP SENDING PRECISELY THE SAME EMAIL OVER AND OVER AGAIN.
You _KNOW_ who I am, or at least you did know when we were discussing
ticket #1555663. If that _isn't_ the case, send me a coherent, non-HTML
email explaining how it is that you've lost this information from an
open ticket.
Do not just send the same automatic response over and over again.

Dear Sir/Madam,
Thank you for contacting Vodafone Customer Service regarding your query.
In order for us to locate your account and check our records please reply to this email with the following information:
-Password
-Your mobile number
-Payment method
-Your address including postcode
-Your date of birth
-Description of your query
If there is anything else we can help you with, please feel free to contact us.
Kind regards,
Nilesh Pailwan
Vodafone Customer Services

I'm not sure I believe I'm seeing this. You've _repeatedly_ been told
not to post HTML, and that you should _have_ all my details on file
already from ticket #1555663.
The mobile number on the account in question was 07796 177782. The rest
of my 'query' is in my previous mails. What is _wrong_ with you people?
I don't recall the password -- this was an account which was closed a
long time ago, and was unused for some time before that. The account was
paid by direct debit until it was closed, and then the direct debit was
cancelled. You continued to attempt to take money, and then employed a
debt collector to pursue me for line rental for the period _after_ I
asked you to close the account. The account number with Wescot Credit
Services is 28632641
My date of birth, not that you should need it, is ...... My address at
the time this account was active was ........
Please pass this to a supervisor or _someone_ who can think for
themselves immediately -- PLEASE don't just send me another one of these
silly mails.
You _HAVE_ all my details. You _KNOW_ who I am and you've already been
discussing my account with me. In ticket #1555663.

Here, it seems I did actually manage to get past the first level and
get someone to actually deal with the matter at hand. Unfortunately,
he didn't actually bother to read any of the previous communication
and just restated what I'd been told in January...

Dear Mr. Woodhouse,
Thank you for contacting Vodafone Customer Service regarding your contract.
Thanks for your information.
I can see that your account was cancelled on 22nd January 2006 due to non-payment.
Also, there is no request to cancel your contract before this date. In order to settle your account, please make a payment of £58.34.
You can send your cheque to the following address:
.....

On Fri, 2006-06-09 at 11:10 +0000, Webform wrote:
> Thanks for your information.
At last, we have moved on from that particular broken record.
> I can see that your account was cancelled on 22nd January 2006 due to
> non-payment.
>
> Also, there is no request to cancel your contract before this date.
> In order to settle your account, please make a payment of £58.34.
Unfortunately, we've moved on to another.
You _were_ told, in 2005, to cancel this account. You were then told, on
the day that I cancelled the direct debit a month or so later, that I
had done so.
You will _not_ be paid for the extra line rental covering the time
between my cancellation of the direct debit, and your eventual
cancellation of the account.
I'm attaching my message of 31st May, since you blatantly don't seem to
have read it.
PLEASE PASS THIS TO MANAGEMENT IMMEDIATELY. I DO NOT WANT TO GO ROUND IN
CIRCLES ANY MORE.

No prizes for guessing what the next response I got was....

Dear Sir
Thanks for contacting us.
We'd love to help with your query, please provide us with the following information:-
-Your account number
-Your mobile number
-Your address including postcode
-Your date of birth.
Once we've received this, we'll be more than happy to help

At this point, I'm bemused. I have come to expect a certain level of
incompetence from telcos, but Vodafone really have taken it to another
level, when they can't even manage to hold a conversation without
constantly forgetting who they're talking to, and they can't even
manage to respond in an appropriate fashion to the email which is
_actually_ in front of them at the time.

UPDATE 2006-06-14

Nothing particularly groundbreaking to
report -- having thrown this page together, I figured it might be
worth another try, referring them to this page in case it helps, since
it has all the history and ought to provoke enough
embarrassment that they might pass it on to someone who hasn't been
lobotomised. Unfortunately (and perhaps unsurprisingly), that didn't
work...

On Fri, 2006-06-09 at 12:14 +0000, Webform wrote:
> We'd love to help with your query, please provide us with the
> following information:-
I am now utterly bemused by your lack of competence. Since you seem
incapable of conducting a conversation without constantly forgetting who
it is that you're talking to, and since you seem incapable of actually
responding to what is said rather than repeating yourselves, I have put
all the relevant information into a web page to assist you. That web
page is at http://david.woodhou.se/vodafone.html
Please get someone in management to deal with this; I am tired of
dealing with first-level support droids who seem to have been
lobotomised. I'm sorry to be insulting, but quite frankly, I think I'm
being rather restrained under the circumstances.

When I received no reply to that, I sent another, quoting the previous mail (with the URL), and adding...

I still await a response to this. Since you seem incapable of dealing
with email, you may telephone me on +44 XXXX XXXXXX.
Do not let a first-line support person contact me and waste my time any
further. Please get someone who can actually think for themselves to
respond. I _will_ be taking legal action if you don't stop harassing me
for a debt which is invalid.

That one did actually get a reply...

Dear Mr Woodhouse,
Thank you for your email dated 12/06/2006
In order for us to respond to your query, please provide us with the following information:-
-Your account number
-Your address including postcode
-Your date of birth.
If you require any further assistance please do not hesitate to contact us.